My Nonprofit Reviews
concernedintern
Review for The Borgen Project, Tacoma, WA, USA
What does the Borgen Project actually do? The Borgen Project made $375,793 in revenue in 2017. What did that money go towards?
I was a policy intern in 2019. I was motivated by the cause and the "massive" network of the Borgen project. I spent months completing menial chore lists- never meeting with any supervisor or mentor in person. To this day I do not know what our work was for. Or the diferentiation between journalism, policy, marketing interns- as we all did the same things (make social media posts, call legislators as constituents- not as representatives of the org), "fundraise", and WRITE FAVORABLE CONTENT ONLINE ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION. They "train" hundreds of interns in batches, with no organizational structure to put us in teams or stagnate the training of less/more experienced interns. At one point I was in a GroupMe with +170 people from across the US. The group chats were representative of the chaotic lack of instruction, prupose, and organization.
I first became suspicious when I was repeatedly asked to aquire + $500 from friends and family. Interns cannot "advance" to the next stage of their internships without essentially paying. The Borgen Project does not provide any material for fundraising- you must provide and pay for your own pins, tshirts, literature, mailers, etc if you wish to fundraise this way. The program is designed so that interns who make the most money can only advance to the next "stages". Having spoken with interns who did this.... there is no difference in the kind of work you do, or the contact you make (none) with Borgen staff.
This was my experience as an unpaid intern based in North Carolina. I encourage you to investigate the credibility of The Borgen Project as a non-profit. Where the funding comes from and how it is spent. What constitutes them as a lobbying group (there are regulations that define this by state). This is a big one- you can ask your local/ state legislators what their experience has been with Borgen (spoiler: it's not great). Watch for the red flags.
